---
name: ReactiveCocoa
summary: "ReactiveCocoa provides reactive, declarative extensions to Apple's Cocoa frameworks, built on ReactiveSwift's stream-of-values primitives. It adds UI bindings, control-event signals, Objective-C method interception, and key-value observation wrapped as composable reactive streams for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS apps."
language: Swift
license: MIT
repo: https://github.com/ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveCocoa
source: https://opensources.dev/resource/reactivecocoa
health: 75
---

# ReactiveCocoa

ReactiveCocoa provides reactive, declarative extensions to Apple's Cocoa frameworks, built on ReactiveSwift's stream-of-values primitives. It adds UI bindings, control-event signals, Objective-C method interception, and key-value observation wrapped as composable reactive streams for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS apps.

[![Carthage compatible](https://img.shields.io/badge/Carthage-compatible-4BC51D.svg?style=flat)](#carthage) [![CocoaPods compatible](https://img.shields.io/cocoapods/v/ReactiveCocoa.svg)](#cocoapods) [![SwiftPM compatible](https://img.shields.io/badge/SwiftPM-compatible-orange.svg)](#swift-package-manager) [![GitHub release](https://img.shields.io/github/release/ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveCocoa.svg)](https://github.com/ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveCocoa/releases) ![Swift 5.1](https://img.shields.io/badge/Swift-5.1-orange.svg) ![platforms](https://img.shields.io/badge/platforms-iOS%20%7C%20OS%20X%20%7C%20watchOS%20%7C%20tvOS%20-lightgrey.svg)

⚠️ Looking for the Objective-C API?

🎉 Migrating from RAC 4.x?

🚄 [Release Roadmap](#release-roadmap)

## What is ReactiveSwift?

**ReactiveSwift** offers composable, declarative and flexible primitives that are built around the grand concept of ***streams of values over time***. These primitives can be used to uniformly represent common Cocoa and generic programming patterns that are fundamentally an act of observation.

For more information about the core primitives, see ReactiveSwift.

## What is ReactiveCocoa?

**ReactiveCocoa** wraps various aspects of Cocoa frameworks with the declarative ReactiveSwift primitives.

1. **UI Bindings**
   UI components expose `BindingTarget`s, which accept bindings from any
   kind of streams of values via the `<~` operator.
   ```swift
   // Bind the `name` property of `person` to the text value of an `UILabel`.
   nameLabel.reactive.text <~ person.name
   ```
   *Note*: You'll need to import ReactiveSwift as well to make use of the `<~` operator.
2. **Controls and User Interactions**
   Interactive UI components expose `Signal`s for control events
   and updates in the control value upon user interactions.
   A selected set of controls provide a convenience, expressive binding
   API for `Action`s.
   ```swift
   // Update `allowsCookies` whenever the toggle is flipped.
   preferences.allowsCookies <~ toggle.reactive.isOnValues
   
   // Compute live character counts from the continuous stream of user initiated
   // changes in the text.
   textField.reactive.continuousTextValues.map { $0.characters.count }
   
   // Trigger `commit` whenever the button is pressed.
   button.reactive.pressed = CocoaAction(viewModel.commit)
   ```
3. **Declarative Objective-C Dynamism**
   Create signals that are sourced by intercepting Objective-C objects,
   e.g. method call interception and object deinitialization.
   ```swift
   // Notify after every time `viewWillAppear(_:)` is called.
   let appearing = viewController.reactive.trigger(for: #selector(UIViewController.viewWillAppear(_:)))
   
   // Observe the lifetime of `object`.
   object.reactive.lifetime.ended.observeCompleted(doCleanup)
   ```
4. **Expressive, Safe Key Path Observation**
   Establish key-value observations in the form of `SignalProducer`s and
   `DynamicProperty`s, and enjoy the inherited composability.
   ```swift
   // A producer that sends the current value of `keyPath`, followed by
   // subsequent changes.
   //
   // Terminate the KVO observation if the lifetime of `self` ends.
   let producer = object.reactive.producer(forKeyPath: #keyPath(key))
   	.take(during: self.reactive.lifetime)
   
   // A parameterized property that represents the supplied key path of the
   // wrapped object. It holds a weak reference to the wrapped object.
   let property = DynamicProperty<String>(object: person,
                                          keyPath: #keyPath(person.name))
   ```

But there are still more to be discovered and introduced. Read our in-code documentations and release notes to
find out more.

## Getting started

ReactiveCocoa supports macOS 10.9+, iOS 8.0+, watchOS 2.0+, and tvOS 9.0+.

### Carthage

If you use Carthage to manage your dependencies, simply add
ReactiveCocoa to your `Cartfile`:

```tsx
github "ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveCocoa" ~> 10.1
```

If you use Carthage to build your dependencies, make sure you have added `ReactiveCocoa.framework` and `ReactiveSwift.framework` to the "*Linked Frameworks and Libraries*" section of your target, and have included them in your Carthage framework copying build phase.

### CocoaPods

If you use CocoaPods to manage your dependencies, simply add
ReactiveCocoa to your `Podfile`:

```tsx
pod 'ReactiveCocoa', '~> 10.1'
```

### Swift Package Manager

If you use Swift Package Manager, simply add ReactiveCocoa as a dependency
of your package in `Package.swift`:

```tsx
.package(url: "https://github.com/ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveCocoa.git", branch: "master")
```

### Git submodule

1. Add the ReactiveCocoa repository as a submodule of your
   application’s repository.
2. Run `git submodule update --init --recursive` from within the ReactiveCocoa folder.
3. Drag and drop `ReactiveCocoa.xcodeproj` and `Carthage/Checkouts/ReactiveSwift/ReactiveSwift.xcodeproj` into your application’s Xcode
   project or workspace.
4. On the “General” tab of your application target’s settings, add
   `ReactiveCocoa.framework` and `ReactiveSwift.framework` to the “Embedded Binaries” section.
5. If your application target does not contain Swift code at all, you should also
   set the `EMBEDDED_CONTENT_CONTAINS_SWIFT` build setting to “Yes”.

## Have a question?

If you need any help, please visit our GitHub issues or Stack Overflow. Feel free to file an issue if you do not manage to find any solution from the archives.

## Release Roadmap

**Current Stable Release:**[![GitHub release](https://img.shields.io/github/release/ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveCocoa.svg)](https://github.com/ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveCocoa/releases)

### In Development

### Plan of Record

### ABI stability release

ReactiveCocoa is expected to declare library ABI stability when Swift rolls out resilience support in Swift 5. Until then, ReactiveCocoa will incrementally adopt new language features.